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April 5, 2012

CJ was like “I’ve heard The Hunger Games is actually pretty good. Do you want to see it?” and I’m like, “I am all for dates, yo.” Except I didn’t say yo. I would never say yo, unless I was saying something like Yo Tengo Queso En La Bibliotecha which is probably nonsense? I don’t think I remember anything about Spanish.

Anyway, we saw The Hunger Games movie awhile back.

I certainly had no prior knowledge of the thing. I knew Shauna liked the series to some extent. I knew that the premise was kind of similar to Battle Royale (although I found, not especially, outside of “kids murdering kids”). I knew the main character was female. I assumed at some point people would be hungry. But yeah, I didn’t have any reason to be racist or anything.

The one thing that surprised me about the story, in a good way, was the look of it all. CJ and I agreed that in a lot of ways, it had a very Fifth Element vibe: all the crazy-ass stupid costumes and whatnot for the rich people of “the Capitol” were just kind of fantastic. It certainly, in a lot of ways, made the movie feel less serious, but I felt like it also emphasized the bad shit about the Games themselves by having it be enjoyed and run by such ridiculous people. Not that “kids shouldn’t be forced to murder each other” is a thing that really needs emphasis to make sense, but, you know.

I also thought the music was pretty good. During several points of the movie, when it was really getting all violin-heavy, I remarked to myself how nice the movie sounded. Maybe I’m easy to please, but it struck me as really enhancing things. Maybe if I went back and listened to it more I’d change my mind. Oh well.

Anyway, the only really shitty thing the movie suffered from was “1-dimensional villain” syndrome. The “bad guys” from Districts 1 and 2 were nothing but bad guys. They really had very little about them that was interesting. I mean, sure, clearly they wanted to survive too, but the pleasure they took in killing with nothing to make that make sense just made them feel like cardboard cutouts. Katniss was at least a little interesting as a character, what with her kind of hating dudes but being forced to play nice with them. Her general issues with letting people in were important to the plot, and made things happen, you know? I dunno what I wanted from villains, but that just didn’t do much for me.
Other annoyances barely worth mentioning: Why won’t Katniss fucking retrieve her arrows ever? She needs those. Why would they revoke their special rules? That would only make the viewers turn on the people running the games, as they’ve gotten caught up in the love story and want to see it successful at that point. It makes no sense.

The action was fun, if not particularly special. The plot was also fun, if not particularly original. I really wanted to see what happened, romance-wise, after the movie, when Katniss went home to dude she was totally having chemistry with at the beginning of the movie. I felt like the fallout from all that would have been interesting to see! Of course, the movie ended there. Oh well.

Basically, I guess what I’m saying is that the film was pretty good entertainment. I had a good time. I’m not in a rush to read the books or anything now. I wouldn’t say the movie was something you had to see or anything. But it’s a good time at the movies! If you want a good time at the movies, that’s a good choice.

in the books, katniss specifically goes out of her way to retrieve her arrows.

Presumably some of the other district people weren’t fleshed out because the books are written in first person. Katniss didn’t know anything about them and was fighting for her life against them, so they kind of were one dimensional for a reason.